With Tired Eyes, Tired Mind, Tired Soul, I Slept
by munchkinjenny05
Summary: Oneshot- Judy Fabray tries to convince her daughter that Beth's adoption was for the best, but Quinn has no interest in her bright new future. She knows that everything isn't just magically going to be okay, no matter how many times people say the words.


**Originally the first few paragraphs of this were going to be the beginning of a Quinn/Puck fic, but I wasn't happy with it, so I scrapped it and took the parts I liked. The story then morphed into this. I'm not really sure what this is supposed to be, I just had to get some of my bad feelings out on paper.**

**I firmly believe that Quinn has been battling depression since giving up Beth, which explains her erratic behaviour throughout the show, so this is my take on the beginning of that I guess. **

Everything is going to be okay, likely the most overused phrase in the English language. I'd personally lost count of the number of times I'd heard the words in the days since I left the hospital. I had no idea how long it had been, I went straight to bed. I didn't sleep; just lay there as time merged together. I closed the blinds and let the hours race by unheeded. It didn't matter if it was 10 am or pm. Large expanses of time clearly passed, punctuated by my mother's presence hovering over me, wearing different outfits and sporting newly styled hair, but the same fixed expression.

She thought I didn't notice that her statements became more hollow or her manner more desperate the longer I stared at the ceiling. It didn't matter to me, I stopped listening long ago. I closed my eyes. She reached for my hand but I didn't respond to the gesture, my arms ached, but not for her. She couldn't understand and I could tell she didn't really want to try too hard to step into my shoes. She never remained long in my room, as if my despair was contagious. I couldn't really blame her, I had ripped everything from the walls in a fit of rage, and the blank walls pockmarked and scarred by the discarded photos and mementos of a former existence were oppressive now. The floor was littered with the unwanted reminders of a life that could never be mine again and they were obliterated underfoot, crunching with every step she took. I felt her perch on the edge of my dishevelled bed.

"Quinnie, please…" I was outraged that she thought she had the right to demand anything of me, especially this. I couldn't make the broke pieces of myself fit together, regardless of the fact she might beg or scream. Things couldn't just magically reset, life doesn't work that way. I refused to apologise for still feelings things acutely that she longed to sweep under the rug. I turned away towards the wall and held the tears in until she left. I refused to cry in front of her, that fact at least hadn't changed and I took comfort in the familiarity of knowing that. She walked away with a heaving sigh, leaving another tray on my bedside and taking the existing untouched duplicate with her. That would have been another way to measure the passing of time if I had bothered to do so. I didn't want to know. I didn't want time to go on as though nothing had changed, when in reality everything had. I just needed all the clocks to stop. My world had stopped turning and I needed something to reflect that, but everything continued seemingly unchanged.

My despair only deepened as time passed. I was someone's mother, how could I go back to being head Cheerio or prom Queen as though I was identical to all my classmates. Their petty concerns were nothing. The hole inside me was growing and growing, the blackness swallowing me. I couldn't pretend I was anything like the girl I used to be. I couldn't go back, no matter how much my mother wanted me to. She tried to engage me, bribe me but I lay inert, ignoring her pleas. I didn't believe a word she said, or anyone else for that matter. They had lied to me. Worse, I had lied to myself. I couldn't face that. I just wanted to sleep and forget, forever if I could.

At the same time, it was getting harder and harder to remain in the house. I refused to call the building home because it wasn't that. As time wore on, my mother lost patience and her gentleness wore away. She became intolerable in her irritation, stocking the rails of my wardrobe herself in the end when I refused to budge. She wasn't pleased that was unwilling to grin and bear it. She had often reminded me that she had soldiered on in spite of the challenges thrown at her, as I quietly seethed, trying to close off my ears. I didn't glance up as she lined up the new outfits, one for each day of the upcoming school year. She had bought soft cardigans, floaty skirts and dresses in pastel shades that hurt my eyes and left a sour taste in my mouth. I wondered if she had even considered how the sugary shades were reminiscent of nursery décor. I couldn't escape it. We didn't talk about it and yet I knew the clothes were a signal that she expected my wallowing to come to a definitive end soon, fading away along with the end of the summer holidays. I think she genuinely thought that a fresh start was so simple, as if replacing my maternity clothes with some pretty new dresses would fix everything. I would forget, start again, just like that. It was a new level of delusion, worse than all the times she had overlooked my father's indiscretions. I wasn't supposed to know, but I did. The same as I was painfully aware that whilst my mother's eyes were shiny with notions of us being happy again, the rose coloured Moses basket, bought by her on a whim, gathered dust hidden in the far corner of the basement.

There was a fight going on silently, between both my mom and I, and fantasy and reality. Some things, no matter how hard you pray, don't come true. Therefore, she could be as optimistic as she liked about my potential or the things that I could achieve, but that wouldn't make her perfect dreams spring into life. I knew that, I embraced the bitter reality. I was worthless. I was resigned to my fate. I accepted my failings, my sin, and the punishment I was forced to endure, the torture of going on with nothing left, no fight inside. She, on the other hand, clasped at straws fruitlessly, rallying against everything her insides tried to convince her. She was adamant that I could still have it all, what she couldn't see, blinkered by her dreams for me, was the idea that I no longer wanted any of it. I wanted only one thing. I needed only Beth, and she was gone. I had let her go. My one mistake haunted me. It was too late. That was why I stayed silent and still, almost unmoving, because I didn't want to move forward, I only sought to undo what I had done, but that wasn't an option. There was no rewind button.

I was also scared to stir in case I dislodged the secrets my mattress kept, the scan picture, an unopened paperback of baby names, and the scrap book that I hadn't quite dared to fill in beyond the first page. I couldn't tell anyone that I had longed to keep my daughter since the first kick, my mouth wouldn't work properly and my voice cracked whenever I attempted to speak. I had tried at the hospital, but seeing Puck I realised that in spite of all the love and undisclosed half-made plans that I had locked inside, either I or we couldn't provide the stability Beth needed. It showed me how ridiculously young we were, how ill-suited and unprepared for something so precious. We weren't a family and we had been kidding ourselves that we could be. It wasn't right, it wasn't enough. Then Shelby came, in the exact instant that I had begun to pray silently. I had asked for guidance and there it was the answer, so it seemed. Everybody had been satisfied, and I acted like I was too, ignoring the burning sensation that bloomed deep within my chest.

That first day, back at school, I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed, styled my hair and put on the little white dress and shoes that I didn't pick out, all on autopilot. My appearance at breakfast shocked my mother and she was so pleased to see me out of bed that she didn't urge me to eat or encourage me to do anything other than stare blankly into my coffee cup. I felt numb. The entire time I wondered how nobody could realise that I stumbled through the halls like a ghost. Nobody seemed able to see that I was screaming inside. Clearly they wanted to believe my propaganda, that I was better, after all, the alternative, my truth was pathetic. Nobody wanted to hear that. I only lasted until lunch before I fled, retreating to my bed, oblivious to the looming test and assignments, unmindful of homework and certainly not caring that they would contact my mother. It was only the first day, far too early in the school year to be skipping and she wouldn't be satisfied by my reasoning that it was difficult to have even made through the few hours that I had already attended. She was tired of my apathy, bored of my depressive moods.

She had a new church group and big plans. She was trying to make things right again and I was tearing down all her progress, burning my tentatively re-forged bridges with her. I didn't care. The threat of being kicked out again didn't register. All I could think was that if that happened, I deserved it anyway, and a worst fate, for my weakness and how selfish I had been. Also, part of me bitterly hoped that she would carry out this out because it would validate that I had been right not to keep Beth or try and raise her in a place that screamed of being temporary. Being disowned again would mean that I was right and prove I was as worthless as I believed.

"We need to talk." I didn't lift my head, just waited silently for the row to start. However, my mother's voice, although upset, stayed level. She didn't raise her voice although I could sense her stare penetrating the blankets I had buried myself in. "Look, I know it's hard, but you need to snap out of this, it isn't healthy, the adoption was supposed to be a good thing, give you back your future. We all just wanted you to enjoy being a kid again, don't waste this chance, I beg you."

I raised myself up, glaring at her. My limbs felt heavy and uncooperative. I sighed. I couldn't release the venom that I ached to spit, because simply speaking at all had become such an effort. "Whatever rosy world you are imagining for us, I don't want it, I just want my daughter, so unless you can get her back for me, then just leave me alone."

"Quinn, you know I can't do that, maybe before your father could've-" She stopped, noticing me flinch at the mention of Russell Fabray. "It's too late for that." She replied solemnly. There it was the truth. I told myself that all I had wanted was for the platitudes and false cheeriness to be banished and that things would be improved when we started talking honestly. It was the first step to moving on I'd heard, but I didn't feel any different ultimately and my mother didn't seem to be reaping any benefits from her words either. She was wringing her hands, staring at the floor. She made a move as if to pick something up, bending slightly before reconsidering. I watched all of this with disinterest.

"So why are you still standing there? Get out."

"I'm your mother." She whispered in defence, walking towards my bed. However, she didn't approach fast enough and the choice of my next words made her stop abruptly in her tracks, frozen almost mid-step still yards away, a huge gulf between us.

"It's too late for that." I parroted back bitterly.

She shook her head in the dismissive manner she always favoured, wearing the expression she used when she liked to pretend that I hadn't said or done something she didn't approve of. It was the same blankness that my father evoked in her. It meant that she would bide her time, weight it out, determined that this less than ideal state of affairs would be overcome. I could tell that she wasn't as resolute as she pretended though because she fingered her small silver cross nervously. My mother's eyes rested upon the spot where my identical chain dangled fastened securely at my throat. Putting aside my pent up frustration, the sentiment I uncovered when I searched her face was in itself enough to warrant what I did. Her expression alone was enough to make me rip off the necklace roughly and throw it where she stood. I was grimly satisfied when it landed right on target, connecting with her shoe and she gasped loudly. It may have been petty and changed nothing in the long run, but in any case, my message was clear and couldn't be ignored. I was saying without a doubt that I needed more than God, more than what she offered me thus far. I was showing her that everything was not just going to be okay this time, and my mother was finally listening.


End file.
